Like any other country, Japan loves ice cream. Especially in the summer months, the delicious treat just flies out of the freezers. And thankfully this year, no reports of errant freezer divers have appeared online! Maybe they finally got it out of their system–or at least learned not to post photos on Twitter…
So, which flavor of ice cream is the most popular in Japan? While that’s certainly a question with an amorphous answer, there is one way to come up with a satisfying conclusion: Take a look at ice cream sales!
Tracking sales is surprisingly tricky–after all, do you really believe everything corporations tell you about their sales numbers? Obviously, they’re not going to lie, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be some creative, um, “framing” of the actual numbers. Jay-Z knows what I’m talking about!
But it turns that there’s another way to find out sales numbers: Take them directly from all the POS’s in Japan! (In case you’re wondering, POS stands for “point of sale” not “piece of salad.”)
Of course, collecting POS data isn’t exactly easy–and simply collecting raw data won’t necessary help everyone–which has created a bit of a cottage industry of companies who gather and analyze the data. In Japan, NPICLOUD is one company that many turn to when they want to find out what’s selling…and what’s not. They also release data information as press releases, like what kinds of ice cream were the best-selling from July 16 to July 22!
Find out if you favorite ice cream made the top 20 list! Percentage of total ice cream sales are listed in parentheses.
1. Morinaga Parm Chocolate Bar (2.19%)
2. Morinaga Choco Monaka Jumbo (1.98%)
3. Imuraya BOX Adzuki Bar (1.90%)
4. Glico Giant Cone Assortment (1.44%)
5. Akagi Garigari-kun Soda (1.36%)
6. Meiji Esseru Super Cup Cho-Vanilla (1.35%)
7. Lotte Sou Vanilla (1.35%)
8. European Sugar Cone Vanilla (1.34%)
9. Glico Papiko Choco-Soda (1.32%)
10. Häagen-Dazs Mini-cup Vanilla (1.31%)
11. Lotte Coolish Vanilla (1.20%)
12. Morinaga Pino Chocolate Assortment (1.18%)
13. Lotte Monaou Multi Vanilla (1.00%)
14. Meiji Esseru Multi Vanilla (0.99%)
15. Lotte Sou Pineapple & Mango (0.95%)
16. Lotte Vanilla Bar Hokkaido (0.93%)
17. Morinaga Pino Box (0.91%)
18. Morinaga Baribari Bar (0.86%)
19. Lotte Hershey’s Chocolate Ice Bar (0.85%)
20. Akgai Katsun & Mikan (0.85%)
Well, that sure is a lot of vanilla, isn’t it? Of course, vanilla is probably the safest flavor you can pick–almost no one will turn down a vanilla-flavored ice cream bar. But we were hoping for something a bit more exciting! We thought for sure some strawberry, green tea, or even sakura-flavored ice cream would make the list. Seriously, vanilla might be the safest, but there is literally nothing as good in this world as strawberry ice cream. Nothing!!
Did you see your favorite flavor on the list? Or is everyone else crazy but you?
Source: MakerNews, NPICLOUD
Images: Aeon Shop Net (1, 2, 3), Morinaga, Summit Net Supermarket (1, 2, 3), Yahoo!, Seiyu (1, 2), Sweets mo issho, 7 Net Shopping (1, 2), Apita (1, 2), Kinsho Net Supermarket (1, 2), Amazon, My Navi, Konekoto